Power Failure
by ModFanFiction
Summary: A mishap during a fight with Katarou results in the team getting their powers swapped. Now, in an attempt to get their proper powers back, they have to get Katarou to cooperate with them, all while dealing with new abilities they don't know how to use - and two teammates currently out of commission due to that. A retelling of Teen Titans Go! Issue #24 with Honorary Titans.
1. Chapter 1

It didn't seem like that serious of a fight. Katarou came up to the newly-formed team after a press conference and demanded they fight him. None of them had heard of him, but Titans East had told them stories of civilians not trusting them to be "real Titans" at first and wanting to see "proof" of their skills, so the team agreed that must be what the man wanted.

With the rest of their team ushering away any remaining civilians, Herald held out a hand towards Katarou. "What kind of fight are you hopin' for?"

Katarou clutched onto their hand, not even shaking it. "Three turns. You may strike first."

Herald pulled away, unnerved by his actions. They briefly considered turning down his offer, but decided against it. They had a feeling he would fight him anyway, or worse, take his rage out on another civilian. "Right."

Fortunately enough, the press conference had taken place at the local park, so they had enough empty space to battle in. It even gave the rest of the team a place to sit down and watch the fun.

"Make your move, Titan!" Kataoru taunted, opposite of the group. "I'm waiting."

As much as they wanted to, Herald knew they couldn't just kick him in the face and be done with it - superheroes don't beat up civilians. So they decided to just knock him off his feet instead.

They darted forward, and then dropped down and swung their legs towards Kataoru's ankles.

Kataoru jumped over their attack, and grinned as he watched them go immediately into another spin to try again. Too easy. His reflexes were faster, and with just one hand, he grabbed their ankle to stop them in their tracks.

Before Herald could fully realize what was happening, they had been hoisted into the air upright, like a twisted cheerleading routine. Unable to break free from Kataoru's grip, they instead focused their energy on staying balanced as possible, knowing that something would break if their body went one way and their leg the other.

Kataoru kept grinning. "My turn." He clamped his other hand on Herald's ankle and began spinning them around. It was much smaller circle than Herald had been in earlier, just to increase the likelihood of giving them whiplash.

Their teammates decided to get involved at that point. While the other four stayed behind to come up with a plan, Gnarrk dashed towards the fight, planning to free Herald from Kataoru's grasp.

Unfortunately for him, Kataoru was faster. He flung Herald towards him, and laughed when Gnarrk, clearly not prepared to catch them, was unable to bear the momentum and was also flung back a few feet.

This caused Kole to abandon the group discussion and rush over to see if the two of them were hurt. She was relieved to see that Gnarrk barely had any scratches, and Herald could sit up with minimal dizziness. She still had to help them fully get up, though.

"Clearly a direct attack isn't going to work," Jinx hissed, internally berating herself for not taking the fight more seriously in the first place. "But-"

"I'm waiting for your next move!" Kataoru began taunting again. "Unless you want to admit defeat."

"But," she started again, "I wonder if he can hit someone that isn't directly in front of him. I'm going to attack from behind while you two distract him. Just, don't run up and punch him." With that, Jinx went off, not sticking around to see if either of her remaining teammates had disagreements.

Jericho did have disagreements, however, for je had the same plan as Jinx. Je wasn't going to stick around and be a distraction, but did sign jems plan to Hot Spot before also running off, albeit in the opposite direction. "I'm sneaking up on him. Good luck."

This left Hot Spot to be the one to distract Kataoru. He grumbled slightly, but still marched forward to the man. He supposed he should have expected this to happen, given that he and Jinx were the only ones on the team that didn't need to be up-close-and-personal to fight.

"Your teammates ran like cowards," Kataoru sneered. "You think you alone can defeat me?"

"Depends if you have other tricks up your sleeve," Hot Spot replied. "You'll find that you can't throw me around." He began to form a small fireball - easier to aim than full fire blasts, and could be dragged out for however long it took his teammates to enact their plans. He hoped it would be soon, whoever it was.

Kataoru wasn't a patient man, and did not appreicate Hot Spot taking his time to take his turn. "If you insist on standing there, then I will take my turn first. Be prepared." He jumped into the air and landed back down in the same spot, the ground shaking on impact. Part of it cracked underneath him, and he placed a foot on one particular crack.

Hot Spot stumbled slightly, but easily balanced himself again, the fire ball he was creating not affected in the slightest. Out of the side of his eye, he could see Jinx nearby, ready to strike. A smug look spread across his face. "Is that all you got?"

"Nope." Kataoru stomped down on the crack, and a large chunk of earth flew upwards, accompanied by a shriek.

Jinx's hexes went flying as she was thrown into the air. The first few crashed in front of her, so when she landed back on the ground, she fell into a dust ball. She coughed and began trying to get dirt out of her eyes.

The rest of her hexes hit Hot Spot. The magic made him recoil back, his fire ball flying out to the side.

Jericho had snuck up on the fight just in time to narrowly avoid a fire ball scorching jem. Je twirled on jems heels, only to bump into Kataoru while doing so. In the first lucky moment of the fight, it seemed that he was content to just laugh at jem, giving jem the opportunity to keeping going past him towards Jinx.

"Friendly fire," Kataoru continued laughing. "A waste of a turn." He then turned and ran towards one of the hills in the park. He wanted to see all six of his opponents at once for is next move, and being above them would do the trick.

"Hey!" Hot Spot shouted, running after him. "Get back here!" It didn't take long for him to catch up, but it did bother him that he now had to look up to see the man. "Hiding up there, huh? Who's the coward now, Kataoru?"

Kataoru didn't respond verbally, and instead simply pulled out the necklace from under his shirt. He held it up so it gleamed in the sunlight, in hopes of showing off just how powerful of a tool it was. And lucky for him, he was showing it to the one Titan on the team who actually knew what it was.

Hot Spot instinctively took a step back from it. "How did you...?"

"How did he what?" Jinx asked as she and Jericho came up behind him.

"That necklace," he responded, more concerned with warning his teammates than replying, "It can trap people inside of it and steal their powers. That must be why-"

"I'm so powerful?" Kataoru finished, his menacing grin returning to his face. "And with all of your powers, I'll be even stronger. I was hoping you all would be more impressive, but power is power. Now if the rest of your little group would arrive..."

"Hold on, Kataoru!" Kole shouted, she and Herald finally rejoining the team. Gnarrk was not with them. "We still have our final turn!"

With that statement, Herald opened up a portal above Kataoru's head. And then nothing else happened.

The rest of the team first eyed the empty portal, then nervously looked over at Herald and Kole, wondering what they had been planning this entire time.

Kataoru, for his part, again laughed at them. "Now that your little performance is over, I'll take my final turn." He lifted the necklace even higher into the air, and his lips began to move.

Nobody could hear what he was saying, because it was drowned out by Gnarrk dropping out of the portal, screaming the whole way down.

Gnarrk grabbed onto Kataoru and pulled him down the hill, away from the rest of the Titans, not realizing that the necklace slipped out of his hand. However, he did realize that the man was significantly weaker once he hit the ground, easily crumpling under Gnarrk's metahuman strength.

"My necklace...!" Kataoru choked out. There was no way he could win a fight, now. But that wasn't his only plan. "You'll want to check on your friends, caveman." His sneer was less prominent with a hand pressing on his chest, but it was still there. "Who knows what happened to them since you interrupted my chant?"

Gnarrk snarled and swiftly punched him across the face, knocking him out. He watched him for a second to make sure he didn't move, then looked over to the hill separating him and the rest of his team. Anxiety washed over him as he started climbing it, not knowing what he was going to see on the other side.


	2. Chapter 2

When Hot Spot first came to, he thought he was dying. He pushed his fingers onto his palm to feel the heat that was supposed to be there, but it wasn't. He was cold. A cold that would have made him shiver if his body wasn't so stiff. It was like something was constricting him, to a point where he had to stop everything else and just focus on breathing properly.

Once that was under control, he forced his arm up so he could look at himself, trying to ignore how stiff his body was. His skin was still a healthy shade, so at least he wasn't really dying. He then further ignored the aches in his body by pushing himself upwards.

He wanted to see how his teammates were doing, if they were going through what he was. Instead what he saw was flames - and the person with no idea how to control them.

The only thing Jericho felt at that moment was panic. Not pain, for the fire didn't burn jem, and not fear, since je was too disoriented to be afraid. Just unadulterated panic.

Je flung jems arms around in a futile attempt to de-power jemself. Instead, je accidentally sent off a fire blast, the recoil sending jem backwards.

Hot Spot managed to duck out of the way of the blast. That changed the aching in his body into pain, as if it was now trying to restrict him from moving too quickly. He continue to ignore that and looked behind him to make sure nothing was on fire where the blast had actually landed. A tree behind him had been a little singed, but that was it.

He hoped that meant Jericho wasn't so panicked je couldn't be reasoned into calming down.

"Listen to me Jericho, it's going to be all right," he started, slowly crawling towards his teammate. Between his own body fighting against him and the heat from the fire now actually affecting him, he didn't make it very far. "Just, breathe for a minute and you'll be able to power down."

Jericho wanted to take his advice, but couldn't convince jemself to. When je laid still, it just reminded jem that it felt like jems blood was literally boiling and that je just had to move to stop it. So instead je jerked upwards and tried to reach out to Hot Spot for help. But the sudden movement of jems arm was too much, and je accidentally sent off another fire blast.

Hot Spot couldn't dodge this blast in time. However, before he knew what was going on, his new powers washed over him, protecting him with a thick layer of crystal.

This is what finally got Jericho to stop for a moment - evidentially guilt was a stronger feeling than panic. As je was looking over Hot Spot for any injuries, it finally clicked in jems mind that something must have happened to make everyone's powers swap. Je, now consciously aware of the fact that je wasn't going to burn to death, could pause for a moment and power down. Satisfied in seeing Hot Spot unharmed from jems attack, je hoped that just thinking about 'turning off' the fire would work.

And je could. It was like the fire just melted off of him, letting jems skin hit the colder air. Unfortunately it was only a temporary reprieve, as Jericho's body temperature never dropped from a fever and je got a whole new host of symptoms from the powers. Heavy sweating, dizziness, and a sudden nauseous feeling had jem doubling over.

Hot Spot wasn't too far behind jem. He couldn't move but was still conscious, and quickly reasoned that Kole's powers must work similarly to his. Her's did, and he was free from the crystallization before he had even finished thinking about it.

He could move now, but didn't want to. He was feeling like he did when he first woke up: cold, stiff, and having trouble breathing. He focused on that last problem first, forcing his breath steady again. At least now he knew why he felt like something was constricting his movement.

The two of them stayed like that for a little bit, just trying to adapt to the symptoms their new powers brought. But Jericho never cooled down and Hot Spot couldn't get himself to warm up.

Hot Spot didn't like to wallow in his own misery - too dangerous - so instead he tried to lighten the mood. "Well, this sucks."

Jericho looked up and gave him a weak smile. Je certainly agreed with that.

The conversation didn't continue past that, however, as the rest of their team had finally found them.

"Good to see you two alive," Jinx said, crouching down to help Jericho up. She then scrunched up her face. "You look terrible. Red is not your color."

Jericho hadn't even realized that whatever had swapped their powers had changed their uniforms, too, but looking down je realized she was right. The usual purple and gold of jems clothing had been replaced by red and even more black. Je then realized that Jinx's uniform had taken over those missing colors.

Once je was back on jems feet, je used jems limited energy to starting signing. "How are you?"

Jinx shrugged. "My eyes hurt a little, but I have eye drops for that if it gets bad. For real though, you look awful. Sweating that much can't be healthy."

Herald, who was helping Hot Spot up to his feet, was subtler with their comments. "Clearly this is doing somethin' to you. Can you walk?"

"Maybe," Hot Spot answered, accepting Herald's offer to lean on their shoulder. "Haven't tried yet. You doing well?"

"Seems like it. Jinx's powers haven't done much to me."

"We should head back to the tower before Katarou wakes up," Jinx started. "I think I know how to reverse all this."

"I think he's going to be out for a while," Kole answered, she and Gnarrk joining the group and completing the team. "He didn't move once while we carried him over here."

To prove it, Gnarrk shook the man he was carrying on his back, who didn't react at all.

"So let's get going then!" Kole seemed to be the only one actively enjoying her new abilities. "When we get there, Gnarrk and I can 'keep an eye' on Katarou." She kicked the air a couple of times to prove it.

Jinx pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling too rushed to share in her enthusiasm. "Great, take us back."

With that request, Herald, very reluctantly, unhooked his horn from his belt and offered it out to Kole.

This stopped her excitement. In the euphoria of having abilities that actually allowed her to move around during battles, she forgot what Herald's primary powers actually were. She, also somewhat reluctantly, accepted the horn. "Right. Guess that's me now." She twirled it around to get a better look at it, randomly clicking on its keys. "So, I just think about where I want to go and blow in it?"

"You have to buzz your lips, not just blow air," Herald corrected. They then launched into the simplified version of the technical rules they had been forced to memorize. "Blowin' air won't do anything because then you won't get the necessary vibrations to make the horn work. Click one of the keys to stay within this dimension. And make sure to keep the portal smaller than yourself, it's against regulations to make your portals too large when it's just used for self-transportation." Herald felt their face heat up as they explained it all; they hated how explaining how the horn worked made it sound so boring.

Kole was unfazed by the embarrassment in their voice. "Buzz and keep it small, got it." Without any other preparation, she put the horn to her lips, pushed down the first key, and played. But instead of a fanfare summoning a portal before her eyes, a noise fizzled out of the horn with nothing to show for it. She scoffed in frustration. "It didn't work!"

Herald was going to offer some more advice, but Kole cut them off before they got the chance.

"I can figure this out, hold on." She figured that, maybe, she wasn't taking it seriously enough. She stomped down on the ground in a power stance, psychologically preparing herself for something awesome. She repeated the steps from before, and this time, they actually worked.

Unfortunately, the opening of the portal had a ripple effect - literally. Vibrations shook Kole's body into a twitching motion and spots littered her vision. She stumbled backwards.

Gnarrk scrambled forward and caught her with one hand.

Just as quickly as the symptoms started, however, they faded away. Kole easily regained control of body and began rubbing her eyes. She stayed leaned into Gnarrk's hold more out of convenience than need. "What was that?"

Herald gave her a sympathetic look. "Vibrations." They went over to examine the portal, temporarily forgetting that they were taking Hot Spot along with them. "In good news, you got it right. Bit small, maybe."

"So we're going to have to crawl through it?" Jinx complained, almost whining. She was not thrilled about the prospect of dragging Jericho through a portal.

Jericho noted the annoyance in her voice and tried to straighten jemself out, to prove that je would be able to drag jems own body through it. But even that little movement was too much for jem in jems current state and je quickly leaned on her again.

Hot Spot had the same idea, but a completely different motivation. He knew that Herald would have no issue pulling him through the portal, but he didn't like to rely on others unless it was absolutely necessary.

"I can crawl." He dropped down to the ground and started making his way through the portal. His body was still stiff, so it was like dragging himself through mud, but at least he had become numb to the aching feeling. Numb was how he'd describe how he was feeling overall.

Herald quickly followed him to make sure he wasn't straining himself too much.


	3. Chapter 3

The team's tower wasn't really a tower. It was the top floor of an empty building that the Titans were paying utilities on. Usually this wasn't a problem for them, since they each got their own room and had running water, but now that they had an unwanted house guest, it became a lot more awkward.

They couldn't just leave Katarou in their wide-open living room-kitchen combo; Even if Jinx's guess about him being significantly weaker without his necklace was true, the empty space would give him room to move around in, and they didn't feel like dealing with him anymore than they already had to. They couldn't lock him away in any of their rooms, either - he might break their stuff. So the only choice of action they had was to keep him in their medical bay, which was really just a back room with a spare bed and medical kit.

Gnarrk was sent off to lock the man in there and watch over him, with Jinx following behind him towards her room.

Fortunately, neither Hot Spot or Jericho needed immediate medical attention. Or at least, Hot Spot claimed that there was nothing that could be done for either of them.

"I had heat exhaustion for days when I first got my powers," he explained. "This is just Jericho's body trying to cope with my powers." Noticing that his teammates were still looking at him, he quickly added on, "And I'm just reacting to not having them anymore, that's all."

"You don't think your powers have anything to do with it?" Herald asked, directing the question at Kole.

Kole wasn't much more help. "Dunno, maybe. I was a baby when my powers started so I can't remember."

Herald focused their attention back on Hot Spot. "I still think you should sit down with Jericho. Rest helps with stiffness, right?"

Jericho, for jems part, forced a thumbs up, if only because watching Hot Spot pace around was making jems dizziness worse. At least staying in one spot was helping with the nausea.

"I need to be alert in case Jericho gets new symptoms," Hot Spot argued, only partially deflecting away from himself.

"He's right," Jinx agreed, returning with one of her old HIVE textbooks in one hand and Kataoru's now-shattered necklace clutched in the other. "The rest of us will take care of our little problem." She opened up the book to its bookmarked page. "This gem is literally a textbook Capture Gem. There are hundreds of them in the world. This one is just an imitation of the original, more powerful one-"

"Which is why Kataoru was only trying to take our powers instead of capturing us directly," Hot Spot finished.

"Exactly. I think that's why he needed to chant to use it, too. He doesn't have the natural magic skill necessary to use it properly." Jinx then went into full leader mode. "Kole, you go back with Gnarrk and wait for Katarou to wake up. Once he does, get him to tell you what chant he was using, since we'll need it to get our powers back. Herald and I will fix the gem in the meantime."

"Your powers won't be enough to override Katarou's spell?" Herald asked. "Since he has no magic of his own?"

Jinx shook her head. "Once a spell has been started it must be completed. Oh, and before I forget-". Closing the textbook and slipping it under her arm, she used her now-free hand to take an extra hairband out from her pocket and tossed it over to Jericho. "That should help with your bangs sticking to you. Now, let's get to work."

The other three Titans left towards their respective tasks, leaving Hot Spot and Jericho in the living room.

Jericho eagerly accepted the hairband. Je slipped it onto jems head, and then rewarded jemself for exerting that much effort by leaning backwards onto the couch, hoping that stretching out a bit would help with how sticky je was feeling due to the sweat.

Hot Spot continued to pace around. He knew that his teammates were right, that he risked the chance of hurting himself by walking on stiff joints. But he also knew himself, and that if he stayed still too long he would only start dwelling on what was upsetting him, let the cold feeling consume him. And nobody wanted that. So he walked instead.

Of course he made sure Jericho was all right, too. There was a legitimate risk of jem suddenly powering up again without jem causing it; Hot Spot remembered that well. There were no outward signs of that happening, no steam coming off jems body nor was jems skin reddening, so Hot Spot would have been content to leave it at that if he hadn't realized Jericho staring back at him.

Honestly, it hadn't even bothered Jericho that Hot Spot was watching jem during his circuit around the couch - je was doing the exact same thing to him. There really wasn't anything else to do. Je was going to start up a conversation about Hot Spot's powers, since je assumed that's what he was worrying about, but je got cut off before je even got jems hands in the air.

"You should roll up your sleeves," Hot Spot suggested, avoiding eye contact. "It'll help." He then went off again, though his attempts to hurry just resulted in him dragging his legs a bit. He wasn't in the right mindset to be having any important conversations at the moment, and frankly 'I was staring at you to find minuscule changes in your appearance' just made him sound like a creep.

Jericho return jems gaze to the ceiling, to try and ease Hot Spot's discomfort. Je was secretly glad je wasn't the only one that was having a bad time with the power swap, but that doesn't mean je wanted to make it worse for him. Je did take his advice, though, unhooking the vambraces on jems arms and pushing up jems sleeves as high as they would go. It seemed to help, as it was more direct skin exposed to the air conditioning, but by the time the second sleeve was rolled up the exhaustion part of jems heat exhaustion kicked back in and je was back to square one. Je wondered if the rest of the team was doing any better.

Jinx and Herald were. The two of them were on the floor of her room, with Jinx explaining how she wanted her plan to go.

"It's said that binding magical objects to the magic itself will make it more likely to work with the user's demands." She held up the textbook page again. "If you use my powers while holding the shards together and saying this spell, the gem will come back together and you can control it easier. Now, summon my magic."

Herald sat there for a minute, trying to figure out how to. They couldn't even get their own powers to work instantaneously like that; they had always needed their horn to act as a conduit for them, and not only because it was considered too dangerous to open space rifts on one's own. They tried imaging what Jinx's powers were like. Evidentially that was all it took, as a hex shot out of their hand, tearing part of the necklace strap. They looked at the results, amazed. Jinx was able to have her powers work with just a thought and no outside steps? Herald would be envious if it didn't make them feel so pathetic.

"No, no." Jinx scolded. "You're turning it into hexes. You need raw magic for this work."

She was met with a blank stare. It clicked in her mind that of course they wouldn't know what she meant by that; the only reason she knew was because she had taken an Introduction to Magic class back at HIVE Academy. She tried to explain it in a simple-but-not-condescending manner, like how she would have wanted to hear it as a child. "Raw magic is what my powers are before I do anything with them. There should be a tingly feeling running through your body - bring that out."

Those instructions were much clearer. Herald had noticed an almost electric feeling in their body, but it was faint enough they could ignore it. They imagined Jinx using her powers again, this time how she looked pre-battle, and immediately a soft, pink glow enveloped their hands. After briefly checking to see if Jinx was satisfied with this use of power, they then got to work putting the gem back together.

As Jinx watched them do so, she felt an emotion she was not expecting: envy. She was envious that they were able to use her powers in such a calm manner, especially since it seemed like their first time with magic in general. Sure, she appreciated them taking the situation seriously, but part of her wished that they had struggled just a bit more with them. She was horrified when her powers first developed, and many, many objects were destroyed in the process of figuring out what they could do. It almost seemed unfair how quickly someone else could adapt to them.

"Got it." Herald held up the almost-fixed necklace. The gem shards fit neatly next to one another, but need the final bit of magic to be completed. "We ready?"

Jinx nodded. "Go ahead. The spell in bold."

Herald put on the most authoritative voice they could muster. "Tcennoc Sdrahs Meg!"

The gem seemed to pull the magic directly into itself, and after a flash of light filled up the room, it was whole again.

"Not bad," Herald complimented themself, admiring the necklace. After a few seconds, they looked back at Jinx and noticed she was stifling a laugh. They raised an eyebrow. "What are you laughin' at?"

"Nothing, I'm just admiring your theatrics." Jinx teased. "Very impressive."

They frowned at her for a second to show his disagreement, but then relaxed again as they changed the subject. "You think Kataoru is awake yet?"

"I hope so," she answered, standing up. "And I hope that Kole and Gnarrk have already gotten the chant we need out of him."

Kataoru was still unconscious, and Kole and Gnarrk were bored waiting for him to wake up.

The most interesting thing they had done so far was use the extra bedsheets to tie Kataoru's arms to the bed's headrest so he couldn't escape once he woke up.

Gnarrk leaned against the wall in frustration, wanting something to do. He felt left out of the day's event, being the only one to escape getting his abilities swapped. That, and he didn't know what to feel about Kole's temporary powers. On the one hand, it made him smile that Kole was having such a good time running around and attempting to do jump kicks. On the other hand, the idea of Kole no longer needing him to fight made him feel empty inside, even if he knew that things would go back to normal soon enough.

Kole, unlike all of her teammates, was having no qualms about her current state. She was going to enjoy this while she could, and was even considering asking Herald to teach her and Gnarrk some techniques when everything was all over.

"Do you think I can walk on my hands now?" She asked aloud to keep Gnarrk in the loop. She easily got into a handstand position, but the moment she tried to move forward her arms began to shake. The answer was evidentially no. To avoid falling on the ground, Kole titled her body forward, until she was able to move into a somersault and back onto her feet.

Coincidentally, the moment she straightened back out, Kataoru began to shift around, groaning slightly.

Kole cheered at the development. "Finally! You remember our plan? Good Cop Bad Cop?"

Gnarrk indeed did remember, and hurried to the side of the bed, ready to wallop the man over the head at Kole's command.

She positioned herself at the end of the bed, staring Kataoru down. After underestimating him before, she wasn't making that mistake again.

Kataoru groggily opened his eyes and attempted to stretch out. His instincts kicked in the moment he realized he couldn't. Looking around, he noticed that he was tied up with bedsheets, and that two Titans were watching his every move. He quickly figured that if he had enough time, he could wiggle his way out of the binds, even without his necklace. After that, all he had to do was escape the room.

He focused his attention to the end of the bed. "Cute mask, little girl. Is that meant to intimidate me?"

Kole ignored his statement. "We'll make this easy for you, Kataoru. Tell us the chant you were using and we won't fight you again."

He scoffed. "Don't make me laugh. You Titans only captured me because you got a lucky shot. You'd have to fight me for real to learn the spell."

"Tell us the chant," she repeated.

"You have to earn it. Show me you deserve to know."

Kole held up a hand to prevent Gnarrk from acting. She didn't want to rush it. Instead, she gave the bed frame a firm kick, shaking it.

The bedsheets tying Kataoru to the bed loosened slightly. He could work with that. "Is that all? I barely felt that."

"You don't want to feel anything else."

"Try me."

Another firm kick towards the bed shook it even harder. The bedsheets began to slip, but Kataoru grabbed onto them so it looked like they were still tied.

"Tell us the chant!" Kole huffed.

"Let me go and we can fight for it. Perhaps then you could actually do something to me." He was ready to pounce the moment the two let their guard down.

She waved her hand. "Fine."

Gnarrk reached towards the bedsheets, only to suddenly stop, grin, and slam his palm against the back of Kataoru's head.

Kataoru yelped a bit and dropped the bedsheets to hold the back of his head. His arms were then pulled back and tied again.

Kole had a matching grin on her face. "Did you really think we'd fall for that? I guess you lost your smarts when you lost your strength."

He cursed under his breath. "Perhaps that was a foolish plan." His smug look soon return, however. "But I have endured far worse pain than this. If you want me to talk, you'll need a new plan as well."

Fortunately, Kole and Gnarrk didn't have to come up with one.

"Is our friend playing nice in here?" Jinx asked, pushing open the door. "We'd like to get this over with."

"Nope," Kole answered. "Any suggestions?"

Jinx shut the door behind her. "Yeah, one." She was the only one on the team who hadn't got to try her new powers, and she might as well get a shot at it. She didn't know what Kole and Gnarrk had already tried to get him to give up the chant, but clearly it needed to get forced out of him.

Herald knocked on the door. "Hey, what's your plan in there, Jinx? Did Kole and Gnarrk get him to tell them the chant? Jinx?"

She didn't answer, and instead went straight to Kataoru. She grabbed his shirt and pressed their faces together, glaring into his eyes.

All that seemed to do was unnerve the man, and he lost the bravado in his voice. "What are you doing?"

"Are you ... trying to possess him?" Kole also questioned.

"Yes," Jinx hissed, looking away from Kataoru. "I'm just trying to remember how Jericho does it." She had made sure to imagine herself taking over Kataoru's mind, but that didn't seem to do the trick. Did jems powers not work like hers?

"Je like ... falls into people's bodies?" Kole offered, unsure of her advice.

Jinx thought it was useful, though. She had forgotten about the physical aspect of Jericho's powers. She turned towards Kataoru again, and noticing how creeped out he looked, gave him a wide smile for maximum effect. She stared at him again, this time remembering that she, in her physical form, was possessing his entire body. It wouldn't be just reading his mind.

She began to fade from view, and Katarou's eyes became washed over in pink as she did.

The scene was quiet at first, as nobody involved really knew how to react. Then Kataoru began screaming and thrashing around.

Herald slammed open the door to figure out what was going on. They saw Gnarrk holding down Kataoru and Kole clutching onto the bed frame to stop it from shaking, but no Jinx. Their first instinct was to go towards the group, but they had barely entered the room when Jinx suddenly appeared again.

Kataoru's eyes returned back to their normal color, but his body slumped over in exhaustion.

Jinx wasn't doing any better, Her body and mind felt light, almost empty. Except for her eyes. Her eyes felt heavy, like they were pushing into her body and cracking it open. She stood perfectly still, giving no indiction that she knew where she was.

"Jinx...?" Herald asked quietly, coming up and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Did you figure out the chant?" Kole hoped that being reminded of what she was doing would help bring her back to reality.

"Ciro ... Enyawd ... Vasarix." Jinx breathed out. She then covered her eyes and started shrieking. She spun around and darted out of the room, knocking Herald's hand off her shoulder in the process. She needed to find Jericho, now; The feeling in her eyes was just too much for her to bare. Even though she couldn't see, she knew that the living room was a straight shot forward.

Hot Spot and Jericho were both startled by the screaming coming towards them.

Hot Spot, already up, went towards the noise and ended up holding onto Jinx's shoulders to keep her steady after she ran into him. "What's wrong Jinx? What happened?"

Jericho had a sinking feeling je knew exactly what she was panicking about, and ignoring how weak jems body felt, got up and dragged jemself to jems teammates. Je gently nudged Hot Spot aside and took Jinx's hands away from her face.

Jinx's eyes were wet and almost entirely red. Jericho softly, and unfortunately slowly, wiped one of them with jems thumb and showed her the results. It was just tears, but je knew perfectly well that she was concerned about it being blood. It also made perfect sense to jem that she was too disoriented to be able to notice that herself at the moment.

Herald and Kole, who had chased Jinx out of the room, slid to a stop at the sight of the three of them bunched up together.

Kole was about to say something to them, when she spotted Herald pulling something out of their pocket. "What are you doing?"

They held the necklace in the air. "I'm fixin' this while we're all in the same place. That's why I told Gnarrk to stay behind, him bein' here might throw off the spell." Before Kole could object, they again mustered their most authoritative voice. "Ciro Enyawd Vasarix!"

A light engulfed the room. Unlike when the gem shattered, the spell didn't knock out any of the Titans, so they were awake to feel like something was being ripped from their bodies, and then something different being shoved right back in. It was a strange feeling none of them liked, but at least it was over quickly.

Once it was, Herald put down the necklace and looked around. "Is everyone all right?"

"I am," Hot Spot answered, his voice no longer defeated. He stepped back from Jinx and Jericho so he could admire his returned powers. The coldness and stiffness in his body were gone, replaced with a warm energy, and the higher his temperature went, the more his mood improved. He was thrilled.

"I ... think I am," Jinx agreed, though still hesitant. The sudden switch in powers left her still disoriented, but at least she wasn't panicking anymore.

Jericho had also improved physically once je got jems powers back. Jems heat exhaustion was completely gone, and je could move without immediately weakening. To prove it, je took off the hairband Jinx had let jem use and handed it back to her.

"All of our clothes are back to normal too, so I guess that means it worked." Kole chimed in. "All that's left is to decide what to do with Kataoru."

Herald thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I mean, we can't really take him to jail, can we? We did agree to fight him in the first place."

"Drop him back off at the park," Jinx suggested quickly, ready for this situation to be done with. "I think I scared him enough that he won't try us again."

There was a general agreement with this plan, so Herald shrugged again and went back to the medical bay.

Soon after, the group heard a fanfare echo throughout the building, and they knew that they would be able to put this all behind them in a couple of minutes. Maybe one day they might discuss everything they learned about themselves and each other like good teammates would, but at the moment, they weren't in the mood to.


End file.
